Nightingale
Pairing: dbf!ShaneWalsh x reader
This is part two to https://www.tumblr.com/sansastark-lvr/821535000219582465/nightingale
Chapter Summary: You run into an old flame at the bar, but your father’s best friend, Shane, is keeping a close eye.
Tags: Age gap relationship, forbidden romance trope, dads best friend, no- outbreak TWD, TWD modern au, 18+ themes MDNI
Warnings: alcohol consumption, foul language, suggestive language, no smut just tension
a/n: Here is part two!! a little longer than the last, i’m slowly getting back into writing lmao, enjoy :)
Chapter Two: Game, Set, Match. It only took 24 hours of you being home for the whole town to catch on, all thanks to your dad who had planned a barbecue party in your honour and invited everyone in a ten-mile radius. The thought of plastering on a fake smile for a whole evening and catching up with your old classmates who still think drinking down at the Old Mill is cool was wearing on your nerves already. Thankfully, you had tonight to unwind; your old High School girl group had texted into a long dead group-chat and suggested hitting the town (quote unquote hard) in celebration of your homecoming. You had jumped at the chance, eager to let your hair down after the tension of last nights dinner. The conversation had flowed easily enough, but every now and then you would catch Shane’s eye, and you could’ve sworn you had seen his eyes darken, as if he knew you were clenching your thighs together underneath the table. This heat was clearly doing things to your brain. High time for a drink. —————————-
Rafferty’s Bar was swamped with warm bodies, dancing and laughing and picking fights with one another. It was your second stop of the night and starting to look like your last. Without really knowing how, when, or why you found yourself on the dance floor, your boots peeling off the sticky -liquored floor as you swung your hips to the beat of the shitty cover band’s music. Your friend Carla appears suddenly and winds her arms around your waist from behind, her raucous laughing in your ear barely distinguishable over the pound of music and conversation. Her boyfriend approaches from the bar with two drinks in hand, passing one of to her and dragging her away to a quiet corner. You tip your head back and laugh as she’s hauled away, but your laughter dies in your throat when another pair of arms catch you in a light headlock. You twist around drunkenly to fight off who you think will be some slimy barfly, only to bump chests with someone more familiar.
“Tommy?!” you shout incredulously over the crowd “Tommy Benson is that you?”
“In the flesh” your ex-boyfriend laughs, pushing his hat back to look down at you properly. “You still angry at me from five summers back or is that just how they greet folks in the city?”
You cringe and lower your half-raised fist, swatting his chest playfully. “As much as you deserve it, I think i’m gonna need a few more drinks before I start scrapping.”
Tommy flashes a white grin, and winds his arm around your waist, his thumb brushing your rib cage. “Well, I think I can help you with that, baby. Promise i’ll let you land one big one on me before the nights out.”
You bite your lip and let him lead you to the bar, cursing yourself mentally. Tommy was your boyfriend for the summer before you left for university, and he was definitely a good distraction for those three months- but you had called it off quickly once you realised he was looking to settle down young and never wanted to leave town. The night you broke up with him ended up being quite the spectacle in the town, the two of you hurling insults at one another by the bonfire down at the Old Mill, your drunk classmates egging you both on. You remembered the slight sting of guilt you had felt that night once it was over, knowing that he would never leave this cramped town. Tommy had been a sweet boy, but the man pushing a drink towards you now looked anything but sweet. He stood a few inches over you, his shirt well filled out with muscles he didn’t have when you saw him last and a thick porn stache that he definitely didn’t have when you left him. Was it Rafferty’s dingy lighting or was Tommy Benson hot now?
“So,” he starts as he leans against the bar beside you “return of the Queen. You’re the talk of the town, you know that?”
“I find that hard to believe” you snort “people have better things to be doing with their time.”
“No, no, I’m serious. I heard it in the store this morning; Rick Grimes little girl is back in town, only shes not so little anymore. Looks like I heard right. You don’t look like the teenage girl that broke my heart all those years ago.” He looks at you long and hard, the corners of his mouth curling up abashedly.
You palm your forehead and grimace, embarrassed all of a sudden despite the confidence the alcohol was giving you. “God, you make me sound so evil. I guess I kind of was at that age” you recall.
“You guess?” Tommy scoffs “You told me you needed someone with bigger ambitions than me in front of the whole school- i’d call that pretty evil.”
You cringe again and lay a palm on his bicep, “I never really said sorry for that did I? I’m real sorry, Tom, I was blackout that night and talking rubbish. I never really believed that about you, I was just trying to hurt you, I think.” The memory of his puppy dog eyes swim in your brain, and the sound of your own drunken voice cursing at him.
He looks down at your hand on his arm and smiles, the whites of his teeth catching in the bar light. “Hey,” he smirks “I never said I didn’t deserve it. I was a stupid kid, and I was in way over my head going around with a girl like you. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I ain’t so stupid either. I reckon I could prove it to you too -if you’d let me.”
He downs the dregs of his beer and offers his hand to you. Shacking up with Tommy again is a bad idea, but a dance wouldn’t hurt. You throw your own drink back and take his hand, letting him lead you back through the throng and onto the dance floor. Time blurs as you dance with him, his hands clumsy on your waist and his belt buckle pushing into your ass as you dance together. You’re well beyond tipsy now, but you’re alert enough to swat his hands when they get too bold. You feel too tired and sluggish tonight to even think about going home with anyone, no matter how good Tommy looks. You tilt your head back to land on his shoulder and your eyes flicker sleepily, gazing out at the heaves of the crowd. And that’s when you see him.
Shane is leaning back against the bar, his arms bulging as he crosses his arms across his chest. With a twist in your gut, you realise he’s talking to someone; a blonde woman around his age, her acrylics curled around one of his biceps. Tommy is whispering something in your ear, the metal of his belt buckle cold on your lower back, but you don’t register a word he’s saying. Fully awake now, you smother a gasp when Shane’s eyes move across the room and land directly on yours. It's difficult to see him clearly through the cigarette smoke and the gyrating dancers, but you swear his mouth drops open slightly at the sight of you. His companion is leaning over and whispering in his ear, but his eyes stay trained on you, heavy and dark. Your brain on autopilot, you bring an arm up and stroke it along Tommys cheek behind you, moving your hips back into his crotch, not caring about the hushed groan he blows into your ear. Shane is still watching, his throat bobbing slightly as he trails his eyes slowly, oh so slowly down your body. His heated gaze catches on your chest; on the sweat gathering on your collarbones, the swell of your breasts underneath your dress. Your drunk on more than alcohol now, your body alight under his stare. You watch as his fist tightens around the edge of the bar when Tommys hand comes up and strokes the soft flesh of your tit over your dress, and your breath starts to come in pants. The blonde beside him has leaned in now and she’s kissing a spot on his neck, just beneath his ear, but she may aswell be a fly in his drink for all he seems to care. His jaw is working as Tommys hand moves from your chest to your jaw, tilting your head around and bringing his mouth to yours. The spell broken, you pull back quickly. Tommy looks down at you expectantly, his eyes questioning if you want this. You glance back in Shane’s direction quickly, expecting to see him still staring, but find him instead with a hand buried in his blonde friend's curls, his tongue down her throat. You whip your head back around, cheeks burning. What the hell? Had you imagined it, the moment between you both? But the steady pulse between your legs tells you you hadn’t.
Tommy is pulling you by the hand again, this time towards the exit and you risk one more glance in Shane’s direction. He’s still in the same spot, only this time he’s nuzzling the woman’s neck with his nose, his tongue darting out and licking up the column of her neck, her head tipped back at the sensation. He catches your eye again and he holds it, smirking as he kisses the sweet spot under her ear. Dick. He grins like he knows exactly what he did, what he’s doing to you right now. There’s a tug at your hand and you spin to face Tommy.
“My trucks out back, baby. You gonna come out with me?” he leans in and whispers in your ear, tucking a curl back.
Your mouth moves, ready to politely refuse, to ask him to call an uber for you- but you pause. Shane’s little game had left you confused and flustered, your head in a spin and your body running hot. But you hadn’t missed the hunger in his eyes, the way his eyes devoured your every move- you hadn’t imagined that. This was just like the tricks he played on you as a girl, the teasing jokes that made you want to grab him and shake him. But that was then and this is now. It’s like Tommy said; you weren’t a little girl anymore, and two can play that game.
Not sparing another look at your father's friend, you hook two fingers into Tommys belt loops and pull him towards you. “Prove it like you said you would, Tom.”









